Bastards are popular

The Financial Times briefly discusses last Tuesday's broadcast of Imagine: A Love Story which included more than one Brontë reference:

Alan Yentob's inquiry into love's literary and cinematic forms (Imagine, BBC1, Tuesday) was satisfyingly self-improving, and confirmed, if in a more refined way, that bastards are as popular in the up- as well as the downmarket. Wuthering Heights tops the romantic favourites (Heathcliff: the bastard gets his) followed by Pride and Prejudice (Darcy: bastard turns out good, especially when Pemberley is taken into account). (John Lloyd)

The Buffalo Times reviews Desire: Where Sex Meets Addiction by Susan Cheever which contains Brontë references as well:

Time and again she concludes that addiction, sexual or otherwise, replaces what trauma and abuse have destroyed — peace, security, reliability, acceptance. Other works have concluded the same, but not by citing NBC’s “To Catch a Predator,” “Wuthering Heights,” Larry King, their own life, “Anna Karenina” and interviews with eminent researchers Helen Fisher, Dr. Martin Kafka and Dr. Judith Herman. (Lauri Githens Hatch)

The book also includes a couple of Jane Eyre references.

BellaOnline has an article with ideas for creative writing lesson plans:

It’s interesting to note that some of our greatest literary giants, such as authors of ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Jane Eyre’ started off in this small way, creating tiny, tiny illustrated homemade books of short stories, some cobbled together out of sugar bags, or whatever else was going spare in the kitchen. They had never heard of lesson plans but, left to themselves in a freezing moorland parsonage with only each other for friends, they weaved dreams of imagination, wars, adventures and magical lands into tales that would rival today’s Harry Potter by J.K.Rowling!
Luckily for the Bronte children, and for us, they were not chivvied to abandon such ‘trifles’ for more solid pursuits or worthier lesson plans as their vicar father was too busy going about his own work and ministry to interfere! Not only that, he actively encouraged his children to express themselves, as students, through all the arts, reading, writing, poetry, music and painting. These creative expressive arts obviously bore talented fruit in great literary works of genius and point us in the right direction when looking for ways to inspire and motivate our children today with creative and child-friendly lesson plans to suit their individual needs as unique students. (Siobhain M Cullen)

The New Orleans Times-Picayune talks to Anne Rice who is promoting her new book Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession:

"Called Out of Darkness" also is a memoir of the reading -- and writing -- life. Rice says that reading was difficult for her as a young person, though she fell in love with Bronte and Dickens at a relatively young age, and that books really didn't open up for her until she was a graduate student. (Susan Larson)

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram presents the new album by the New York band TV on the radio, Dear Science, like this:

The Brooklyn quintet’s Dear Science, one of 2008’s best albums, is a thrilling artistic accomplishment, one which swings from dizzy electro-clash collages (such as fried-nerve opener Dancing Choose) to florid gothic fever dreams, as exemplified by Science’s wooziest track, Family Tree. Lit from within by co-lead vocalist Tunde Adebimpe’s luminous baritone, Tree obliquely sketches a forbidden courtship evoking Wuthering Heights as illustrated by Edward Gorey. (Preston Jones)

The song can be played on the band's MySpace.

Another band with a Brontë twist is Alphabeat (more on previous posts) which is mentioned in The Independent.

The refrain of forthcoming single "What Is Happening" is the cue for hands-in-the-air jubilation, and it's one of many: "10,000 Nights" (which namechecks "Wuthering Heights") and the encore of "Fascination" itself (which namechecks "Easy Lover" and "All the Young Dudes", or at least seems to until you read the booklet) are two more, the latter given a brilliant big-tease build-up.

And let's now finally take a walk on the blogosphere: Susan's Thoughts and Ramblings interviews author and artist Debbie Ridpath who is now re-reading Jane Eyre. RockDaniela's story posts about Jane Eyre in Romanian. Skidmore's island recovers and old interview with Maureen Peters, author of several Brontë-related books (among them A Masque of Brontës, Child of the Earth, The Genii, The Child of Fire or The Haunting of Houses) who had this curious theory about Emily's death:

She had just come back from an extended holiday. Two days in Hawarth [sic], the capital of Bronte Country.
“I love it. It’s still the nineteenth century there with cobbled streets. It’s where they made the Hovis advertisement. In the apothecary’s - NOT the chemist’s - they still sell Dolly Blue and wear 19th century dress. I was disappointed they didn’t have laudanum when I asked, but they said they weren’t allowed to sell it.”
Magic mushrooms had been found in Top Withas [sic], the setting for Wuthering Heights, and Maureen wondered if Heathcliffe[sic] and girlfriend got their kicks from chewing them. Alas, the discovery came too late for her biography of Emily Bronte, “Child of the Earth”, which took her three years of research and is written in novel form from Emily’s letters.
Maureen wondered if Emily was an early euthanasia case. “She was bitten by a rabid dog and could have caught hydrophobia. There was some mystery about her death. Her Uncle Hugh was brought over from Ireland when she was ill and went back a totally changed man when she died. He would never talk about her death and the family maid at that time was left £300 in Pastor Bronte’s will, which was a fortune in those days. I wonder if Uncle Hugh assisted the death. The Parson couldn’t and Emily would not have been allowed to take her own life. It’s all fascinating.”

Well, the rabid dog incident is undated (although Juliet Barker speculatively places it in 1833), but Romer Wilson, in her 1928 biography of Emily Brontë, already traced parallels between Shirley's description of the incident and the actual incident. As a matter of fact, in chapter XXVIII of Shirley (which by the way today celebrates its 159th anniversary of publication) it says:

'You know, in case the worst I have feared should happen, they will smother me. You need not smile: they will - they always do. My uncle will be full of horror, weakness, precipitation; and that is the only expedient which will suggest itself to him. Nobody in the house will be self-possessed but you: now promise to befriend me - to keep Mr. Sympson away from me - not to let Henry come near, lest I should hurt him. Mind - mind that you take care of yourself, too: but I shall not injure you, I know I shall not. Lock the chamber-door against the surgeons - turn them out, if they get in. Let neither the young nor the old MacTurk lay a finger on me; nor Mr. Greaves, their colleague; and, lastly, if I give trouble, with your own hand administer to me a strong narcotic: such a sure dose of laudanum as shall leave no mistake. Promise to do this.'

Concerning Hugh Brontë's visit to Haworth after Branwell's death: it is merely a rumour, although Chitham mentions it in his biography of Emily Brontë.

Categories: Emily Brontë, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Shirley, Wuthering Heights